City of Angels, City of Poets
From: LAPL blog
On historic Central Avenue near East 45th Street, the Vernon Branch Public Library looks like a jail—tall fences surround the circa 1915 building and a fenced walkway leads up to the doorway. Like the surrounding neighborhood, the library appears worn, beaten down. It’s situated on the edge of the high-crime Central-Alameda reporting area of L.A.P.D.’s Newton District—in the six-month period ending November 22 there were 249 violent crimes with an average 145.7 crimes per 10,000 residents.
Yet, once inside its doors, the library is alive with children, parents, teachers, and some of the most engaged librarians you’ll ever meet. Inside is an oasis of books, computers, CDs, DVDs, and more books.
Wendy C. Ortiz’ first memoir, Excavation (Future Tense Books 2014), was a compelling book that dealt with the misuse of trust that was perpetrated when her private school teacher embarked on a relationship with her when she was only thirteen. Although she had plenty of publishing credits under her belt prior, this was her first official book, and quite the book it was. One year later, this nonfiction writer, poet, and essayist is presenting us with her latest endeavor Hollywood Notebook, which was published by Los Angeles based Writ Large Press in the summer of 2015.
PEN Center USA’s Author Evening Series
e work she has nominated for the prestigious national award, Pushcart Prize, considered America’s most honored literary recognition program.
Last night at Espacio 1839 in Boyle Heights, literature converged with social justice. It was a night to honor the worth, strength and humanness of women. Especially society’s most vulnerable women, who grow up without a stable family or are lost to the system. All this coincided with the release of Jesse Bliss’s book I Love Myself Golden, a book specifically to cultivate self-love and respect in the young women she’s encountered in Juvenile Hall working with the Inside OUT Writers Program.
Listening Room Open Mic
Issue 2 of 
Cadence Collective’s Poetry Party
Alejandro Morales, the son of Mexican immigrants, was born in Montebello, California, and grew up in Simons, the company town of the Simons Brick Yard #3, bordering Montebello. He earned his B.A. from California State University, Los Angeles, and a M.A. and Ph.D. from Rutgers University. Morales is currently a professor in the Department of Chicano/Latino Studies at the University of California, Irvine. Morales, as a novelist and professor, was awarded the Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature in 2007 from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
This book brought me to so many tears. It’s so breathtakingly heartbreaking and tragic and beautiful and observant in a way that seems so essential and sacred. I confess I started reading it almost a year ago when Chiwan first gave me a copy at my old apartment in Silver Lake, and I started reading it that night but had to stop. I was already going through such an intensely emotional time, and I cried all night and couldn’t handle the added heartbreak. I finished it this morning and I can’t say articulate the honesty and tragedy and beauty of the language contained in these poems. When I started the#finalpoem series, I asked this:
Los Angeles Literature 